Warming the Dungeons
by Twinkling Tabby
Summary: The night before a great battle, probably the greatest battle of Hogwarts against Voldemort, Hermione feels like she has someone else to comfort than Harry. Someone darker and more impressive, less open, but perhaps needing more healing than her friend.
1. Weil Rosen stets bei Dornen sein

Warming the Dungeons,  
  
"Weil Rosen stets bei Dornen sein." (Mozart, Die Zauberflöte)  
  
A Thursday evening in the Gryffindor tower.  
  
Hermione was stepping down the stairs to the Common Room, her head high, eyeing her surrounding with self-confidence, as if she had just taken an important decision. Which, indeed, she had. As she reached the floor of the round space, she scanned it thoroughly, until she spotted what she apparently had been looking for, at one of the tables, near the fireplace.  
  
She conjured a chair as she walked toward it, and sat there, with Harry and Ron. For a while, she just listened to them, as they talked:  
  
"You know, Harry, I think they have to protect us, if they want Hogwarts to go on being a respected school. They can't allow us to fight with them.»   
  
"And they can't forbid it, anyway." Harry countered, self-confident, as if announcing an evidence.  
  
Ron grinned feebly and stared at the fire.  
  
"Well, that's what they just did, isn't it?» he said in an unconvinced tone.  
  
"Oh, did they?" answered a determined-sounding Harry. "But they won't stay here to threaten us about House Points tomorrow, will they? They won't do anything against all of us coming and fighting at their side?"  
  
"I suppose they won't" Ron sighed heavily. "But, Harry.» He had a desperate inflexion in his voice that made Hermione suspect that precise conversation had, for the thousandth time in some days, already been discussed for a while when she arrived. "You know you're special, I mean. It's not anything, it's Voldemort and his bastards of followers who'll come and attack that school of ours tomorrow, and. Well you know he wants you. You can't just come out and say 'Hello'. You have to hide. You just have to."  
  
"But I can't either stay here in a high secure zone while all of you 7th years and probably some younger students risk their skins for me. It's my fault in the first place if we have to fight. And I wouldn't pop up and say Hello, as you so nicely put it! I just refuse to let you all die for me"  
  
"No, of course. It has to be the other way round, hasn't it?" Ron articulated through gritted teeth.  
  
"Ron!" Harry gave him an angry look, sighed, and then his face relaxed. "You said that on purpose, didn't you? You want me to feel like I don't have to play hero. But you know I don't. I'd only feel so bad, staying in and waiting for you to finish them or die. You'll be out there, won't you?"  
  
Ron nodded, and suddenly stood up. "Excuse me, I have to go. somewhere.»  
  
Harry threw his retreating back a strange quizzical glance.  
  
"He's crying." Hermione answered his unasked question. "Doesn't want us to see the tears." She reflected. "And it's not your fault anyway, it's not your fault if they're all so mean and despising and.»  
  
They sat in silence for some time. Then Hermione took a heavy breath and opened her mouth.  
  
"Let it be, Hermione. I know you agree with him." Harry shuddered. "And I know you're right, but. I just can't assure you that I'll be able to stay passive tomorrow."  
  
Hermione smiled, a little surprised. well, she grimaced as much of a smile as she was able to that evening. "No, it's not what I was about to say. Although you're right." She hesitated. "Just try to stay in as long as you can. After all we could have avoided that fight if we had given you to them, so don't sacrifice stupidly, will y-" She stopped, her voice muffled with repressed tears, and looked away.  
  
When she looked at Harry again, he was staring in the fire, beside him. She took a shuddering and supposedly calming breath, and found her voice again.  
  
"In fact, I wanted to speak about Snape."  
  
"Snape?" He arched an eyebrow, which only reminded Hermione of a very Snape- like expression, indeed.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well, I suppose I was a bit self-centred indeed, to think I was the most important subject right now."  
  
"That's not what I meant"  
  
She took Harry's hand.  
  
"No, I know. That's just what I notice. He is enduring far more than I have and am."  
  
"Hum, indeed that's possible." She chased the topic with a wave of her wand- hand. "What I wanted to say, though, was that, after. Well, after Dumbledore talked to us all, you know.»  
  
"Yes, after he told the whole school about his role as a spy. I see your point he didn't seem to feel too good about that. All the potential future Death Eaters do seem to be gone by now, though. Unless we misjudged our 'good surprises' and one of them could be. But no.»  
  
"I don't think so either" she comforted him hastily. "Draco is truly on our side."  
  
"Yeah.» He locked his eyes with hers. "So, what?"  
  
"Well, I thought. I thought he deserved a bit of encouragement and I could go to him and express the. err. admiration and. thankful thoughts of the whole school." She had spoken that really hurriedly, and only calmed herself then, to say much more clearly: "And I wanted your opinion about that."  
  
Harry stared at her silently, for a few minutes, seemingly ages. "Well" He finally uttered. "I can't see why not." The corner of his mouth tended in a half-smile of understanding. "The poor man has suffered a lot. Of course he deserve that. Do you want me to come?"  
  
Hermione felt very relieved. "Thanks Harry, really. I wasn't that sure, you know. if I was the only one to think that. But then, if even you agree, after what he put you through.»  
  
"Hermione," he interrupted. "What he did to me wasn't anything. I mean, it was only a teacher hatefully bullying. And I was, what, eleven? And I didn't understand. I don't pretend it was an easy time, but now it's the war. It would be childish from me to still hold that grudge, wouldn't it?" He sighed. "I really wish I was back in those time, with him spitting insults to me. and you dragging us to the library, you know, and hurrying us about revision and homework-plans. After all, the NEWTS would be in a few weeks, wouldn't they?"  
  
"Yeah.» she answered with the same dreamy face. "But about you coming, I don't think I need it. You've got thinking to do, and I. Well. It's my idea, and I'll do it."  
  
He gave her an appreciating look. "Good luck then" he added.  
  
"Yes", she uttered, feinting to be really afraid. or perhaps it wasn't that much feinted.  
  
Harry patted her hand before letting her go, and she stood up. She straightened her school robes and shuddered a bit, involuntarily. So much for the feinted fear.  
  
As she was about to turn on her heels, she heard "Hermione?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"You'll be out there, tomorrow, won't you?"  
  
She hesitated. "Well. To tell you the truth, yes, I suppose I will."  
  
He nodded.  
  
"But then" she added "I'm not you. you know. Harry Potter." She emphasised with a tentative smile.  
  
"You're still very exposed, Hermione. Muggle born. And one of my best friends.» He looked up under a lock of hair. "You'll have to be careful, huh?"  
  
"I will Harry, I will."  
  
And she went to the portrait hole.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Later that evening, in the Dungeons.  
  
Hermione was walking while analysing the Marauders' Map in her hands. She hadn't come here just after her conversation with Harry, because a walk really had been in order to calm her storming brain. Not to say it was serene right then, but still. She had tried. She intended not to step too noisily, although she had half a mind that the deafening thundering of her heart would give her away, anyway. God that was still Snape, after all. moody, towering, impressive Snape.  
  
According to the magical object guiding her, she was now as near from Snape as she could be. Only a wall separated her from what she supposed were his private chambers, since it wasn't his office, nor of course the potion classroom. A thick stain wall, though. chilly, typical of the dungeon.  
  
She hesitated. Well, she seemed quite lost anyway, so she had better meet the Potion Master, now, or she would have to walk for an eternity through the intricacy indicated by the map. She was sure he knew a passageway for her. if he didn't throw her out before, she thought pointedly. Summoning all her courage, she remembered why she had come, took her wand out to scan the wall, and. didn't find any door. Oh, Merlin's hat!  
  
He was still pacing on her Map, so she came in front of the place where he would undoubtedly pass, tapped the wall to let it sound-permeable, waited for him to be just in the right place, took a great breath, steadied herself. did it again because it wouldn't work, resisted the impulse to hit her head against the wall, although it may have the desired effect anyway, shut down her defence system's protestations, and knocked.  
  
Then she deftly closed the map and put the blanked piece of parchment in one of her pockets. And waited, again, unsure. For a moment she thought he would appear out of thin air. Then she looked around her and saw nothing. Maybe he hadn't heard. Or he didn't think it was someone, after all there w.  
  
"Miss Granger."  
  
All Right, here he was. The dark door had been camouflaged about ten feet to her left. She had scanned that part of the wall, though. So it had to be a strong hiding charm.  
  
"May you be so nice and tell me what the hell you're doing here at this hour, please?"  
  
'Calm down, calm down.' she thought. "Well", she spoke up. "To tell you the truth." She would have sworn he was biting back a 'You'd better'. Lucky he was biting it back, then. "I was coming to see you and err. didn't find the door."  
  
"Which I'm very grateful for, since it's the purpose of doors pretending to be walls. So, your brain was very frustrated about that failure and you found another way to catch my attention. How very characteristic of you." She was looking at him while he spoke. He wasn't in robes, only in trousers and shirt, but that didn't make him look less dreadful: still that worn out face, having endured everything, ready to die was all that came to her mind to describe it. She felt a wave of compassion.  
  
"However, and although I wonder how on earth you found the location of my quarters, I don't have time for your academic questions, not tonight Miss Granger. And so I'll ask you to go back where you want, I won't even question the means you employed to come to me or the hour it is, just. Go away."  
  
His words weren't surprising, but his tone suggested weariness in so much quantities that she wouldn't have been any more shocked if he had added a authentic 'please'.  
  
However, she managed to walk toward him and answer before he shut the door.  
  
"That's not why I'm here Professor. It's not about work or potions."  
  
This time he did seem a bit surprised, and truly looked at her, directly, for the first time.  
  
"Isn't it?"  
  
He seemed to make up his mind and stepped back, to let her enter. And so she did. "I suppose," he added "that I may as well listen to you, as it seem it could be the last evening that I can do so."  
  
Refusing to process the implied meaning of it, she searched for the sofa, without looking at anything else in the room, and headed to it. Snape stared at her while she sat, his expression giving away the sarcasm he could have pronounced, but stayed silent. When she was sat, he took his wand out, pointed it at her, and conjured a cup of tea between her twitching hands.  
  
"So, Miss Granger, I'm listening." He said, still leaning on the wall and very tall and dark to her.  
  
"Well." She breathed. 'Yeah, breathing is a good idea' she heard her imagination supply to the comment he apparently wasn't in the mood to make this evening. "I came to tell you something." 'Really?' the annoying voice went on. "I. Err." She had to make that voice quit, it was highly disturbing. And Snape's lack of anything mean was strange, to say the least.  
  
"All right, let's try it again" she uttered, and he kept his eyes upon her.  
  
"The students of that school have to express their gratitude and admiration for you" she pronounced, not looking at him. "And I really wanted you to know, although I'm conscious that it's not much, that we're all at your side. And. We will help you, as much as we can, tomorrow, consigns or not. We want this school to survive as much as you, and. we want you to survive." She stopped and hesitated to look up. "Oh, and some of us also wanted to tell you how much we're worried about you. you. well you don't look, err. healthy and.»  
  
"And some of you actually noticed?" he interrupted, forcing her to finally level her eyes.  
  
"Yes, definitely." She said, her eyes in his. "You've been our teacher for some years, and.»  
  
"And I've been bitter enough to last you a lifetime so you don't need me anymore, do you?" She tried to interrupt but he went on. "How very nice from the Head Girl to make herself spokeswoman of a human care, and how Gryffindor and pitiful of you to invent that care in the first place. But thanks, I can live without your imaginary compassion."  
  
"Professor, I'm. Well I'm sincere." She tried to think a way of making him believe her, and let down his damn isolating wall of acrimony and bitterness. Somehow it now seemed the most important thing to do. She had come for it and would find a way.  
  
"Please, Professor, just believe me when I tell you I didn't even think about my Head Girl err. duties, when I decided of coming here."  
  
She tried to catch his eyes. And failed miserably while he toyed with his wand and took a good long detached look at the floor.  
  
"I mean. I came because I'm worried about you. Me, personally, and I don't fake it."  
  
He still didn't react.  
  
"You look awful, and I feel bad for you."  
  
Nothing.  
  
"Professor you didn't even use your well-known biting comments tonight. And that's worrying me sick."  
  
"Miss Granger" he finally said, not looking at her. "That I do look awful, as you put it, or even disgusting, as I've already heard, isn't really new, is it?"  
  
"You know that's not what I meant!" she revolted.  
  
"If you say so, whatever. You're right however for the sarcasm. And I figured I would try it since it's perhaps my last night to live. But, believe me, I'm not worth the worry of one of Harry Potter's best friends. Go and cheer him up, he certainly needs it; I'm a grown man, I don't."  
  
"That's a lie." She said, trying to look calm while constantly wondering if that was too much. Apparently not, since he didn't explode, only watched her expectantly.  
  
"What" he mocked "Am I not a grown man?"  
  
She nearly smiled. "I never knew grown men were to cope alone with everything. To the point, no, the lie is that you don't need anybody."  
  
"You were looking for my sarcasm. Then. let me say I didn't use the word 'anybody'; I only told you I didn't need you."  
  
Her eyes narrowed for a nanosecond and it was gone. She wouldn't let him chase her out that way. She took her wand slowly, aimed calmly and conjured a cup of tea for him. The same one he had sent her, only a little stronger, perhaps. "Come and sit," she said.  
  
He seemed amused, but pocketed his wand, stood up from the wall, and walked to the armchair in front of her. Before he had the time to sit, though, she convinced herself to ignore his face, clearly betraying that he only waited to explain her she had no business with him, and repeated, "Come here," and patted the place beside her, as if it was the most normal place to suggest.  
  
He slowed his pace and she admonished herself. That was too much, she shouldn't have. but then he stepped up and sat beside her, on the sofa. She turned to face him, to be sure she wasn't falling asleep and imagining things, but no. He was really there. 'Good, nearing the limit, scaringly so, but clever move.' She thought.  
  
She had forgotten his declarations about not needing her. Fortunately so.  
  
He let the silence settle, sipping distractedly his tea.  
  
"Professor?" she called.  
  
"Miss Granger."  
  
"You believe me, don't you? We do care about you."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Who's we?" he finally consented to ask.  
  
"Oh. well. It's about everybody in the school, but. If you want to know, I discussed it more specifically with Harry."  
  
He turned his head and some surprise wasn't dissimulated in his expression.  
  
"No, really." She assured him.  
  
"Good.» He admitted. "Then I thank you."  
  
This time she felt surprise settle over her whole face.  
  
"No, really." He mocked.  
  
Hey, that was more teasing than his usual sharpness. Did the man really think he would die the next day, or what else could make him act gently? Well, gently considering what his usual manners were, anyway.  
  
He was plunging again in the swirls of his tea, and she came nearer, without him to notice. Well, perhaps she didn't even notice herself, it was really more of an impulse, or she wouldn't have dared anyway. And she kissed his cheek.  
  
He started in surprise and she was sure he nearly let his tea slip.  
  
For a moment, she thought he was fighting for words. But then, she realised he wouldn't say anything. He tried to ignore what she had just done the best he could.  
  
So she took unfairly profit of it and of the still nearness, and hugged him. She felt him tense, but wouldn't let go. Her arms were tight around him, nearly painfully so since he wouldn't lean against her. She felt lots of different emotion pass through her for the man in her arms, not able to be anything but an inanimate rock against her. She did know what it was to refuse human contact, and lock oneself in intellectual. well, thorough analysis wasn't the most immediate problem, anyway. She stared at the wall.  
  
"You know," she said, playing on his register " I don't think that if you or me die tomorrow, it will matter much to people, that I embraced you tonight."  
  
He closed his eyes, slowly. Almost pleadingly. But what for?  
  
"And if I survive, I promise I won't tell anyway."  
  
At that he opened them again and apparently nearly look at her, but caught himself in time. However, he was still shocked, as if paralysed. She really wondered what to do and finally admitted she would have to let go of him.  
  
And then it happened. He just relaxed.  
  
He leaned against her and breathed freely again. She took the cup from his hand, deposited it delicately on the floor, for lack of a table she could have spotted near. Well, maybe if she had looked next to her she would have found it. But it was hardly the central subject of her attention as she took him against her chest and petted his head, at first hesitantly.  
  
She smiled at the idea that she should be admonishing herself about something along the line of "Oh, God, I'm petting Snape's hair, for God's sake!" But she didn't. It felt good to have him alive beside her, confident enough to let his head on her, under her hand. And soaking her clothes. wait a minute, soaking? Were that tears? Oh God. And think The Boy Who Lived had offered to come with her. One of the two would have died of a nervous attack in that case. Or most probably nothing would have happened.  
  
At that very instant, she heard a whisper. "Thanks," it said.  
  
Oh God. Was that reality, then?  
  
  
  
*** 


	2. Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amor...

Warming the Dungeons  
  
I had a hard time deciding if I would write again for this story. You see, I hadn't planned to, but some reviewers seemed to envisage it rather hopefully, so I began to really wonder. ^_^ But still, I wanted to write a story of compassion. And it may turn into a deeper shade of emotion, but. rather friendship than love, I suppose, and a story about friendship seems more difficult to frame than a basic love story, doesn't it? I mean, when am I supposed to stop? They won't get married; neither can I drive them to the bed and then consider that it's finished. I don't think there's a definite end to friendship, and turning points are not sharply delimited, because there are no physical levels to climb, so. It's not that easy to organise when I don't know to where I'm heading. I finally decided to go on with vignettes more than real chapters, with more or less time between them, and I'll try to make sense of it. But everything isn't already definite in my brain, so I'm still opened to idea and suggestions. Get the better of it until I have a clear project about the story, because then I won't be that much convincible any more and it will cost a lot of arguing to make me change something! For example, I'm still trying to decide if everything will be seen from Hermione's focalisation. I rather think not, but I may change my mind.  
  
Enough rambling, to the point.  
  
  
  
  
  
2. "Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore" (Virgile, Eneide)  
  
Twelve days later, in the hospital wing.  
  
In the large, white room, everything was quiet. The 3rd Year Hufflepuff girl who had been wailing earlier had now calmed enough to sleep, thanks to Madam Pomfrey's ministrations. The nurse had run out of pain easing potions and the next set of it was still cooling in her office. It had to rest for some hours, in order to become efficient. Harry was discreetly reading, in another bed. He was just there as an extra-measure of safety, since his scar had had all those strange reactions in the troubled period which had followed the battle. Not that there was any place to waste, given the circumstances, but the medical domain had been so enlarged anyway, that one bed more or less didn't really disturb. At the end of the room, near the window, 17 beds away from Harry, some of them containing friends, was Severus Snape. He wasn't awake. Unfortunately, though, it was the 11th day he spent out of consciousness. He was the most puzzling case in the hospital, the only one still in a life threatening state. But then, he had been one of the most exposed fighters. Perhaps his unknown ailment had something to do with his Dark Mark. Hermione was vaguely thinking, leaning against the cool surface of the window, absent-mindedly letting her eyes wander over the country.  
  
She heard Poppy Pomfrey's professional steps behind her. "If he doesn't wake up, I'll have to go back to my cauldron," the nurse said to the silent room.  
  
Hermione turned on her heel, smiling tiredly, to see the shocked look plastered on Harry's face. She exchanged an amused glance with the nurse.  
  
"She's only joking, Harry." She finally explained. "It's her way of reminding me that I have to go and brew her some useful stuff." Then she addressed the mediwitch: "So, what do you need?"  
  
"Well, I think it could be safer to ask me what I don't need, dear. But if you'd be kind enough to concoct some sleep potion, I think it's the most urgent, with all those nightmares they have."  
  
"Can't blame them," Harry interrupted "but it's good to know that nothing more crucial than that is missing for now, isn't it?"  
  
A heavy silence planned for an instant. Hermione didn't want to think to those who had left their lives out there, around Hogwarts. Those who weren't even here, to be rescued. Especially not to one of them. "You're right, boy." She heard. "Of course. Also I'd have preferred to save more of them." the voice drove higher and its owner turned away to inspect her shelves. After a while, she stopped trembling and sighed. And then said "So young pupils out there, fighting. That was madness."  
  
Hermione walked to her chair, next to Harry's bed. "Yes, but we won." She answered.  
  
A clock sang some silly tune somewhere, and Hermione asked for the time.  
  
"Four o'clock." Harry answered.  
  
"Oh. I'd better be going if you want your potion ready for tonight, then."  
  
The nurse nodded and Hermione stood up again. She glanced a last time toward Severus Snape's form, on his bed, and Harry smiled at her.  
  
"Don't worry, Hermione, if he or Ginny opens an eye and say Hello, we'll be here to answer. And we'll come straight to you, anyway."  
  
Ginny was one of the few who had received a long-sleep inducing potion, so that she would rest and her body would have the time to regain some strength.  
  
"Yeah, I know you would. Though Ginny still has 15 hours to sleep, hasn't she?"  
  
Harry gave a look at the chronometer on Ginny's bed, facing him. "Well, 15 hours and 23 minutes, that's what it says."  
  
Hermione sighed. In a bit more than 15 hours, someone would have to tell Ginny about her brother. That was not a task she envied, well, admitting that it wouldn't be hers. She had already volunteered to stay at Snape's side when he'd care to come back to the world. Assuming that he would. Definitely.  
  
She went out of the white room, into the stone corridors of the castle. Each meter of it, each carved niche into the wall, each suit of armour reminded her of something. None of her memories had to be precise, there was just that vague intensity in the air, letting her know that would she have cared to search, she would have find a certain amount of her life bound to those places. Non-events of perfectly unimportant days. those of classes and homework and nothing else, especially the numerous nothings else, and as she moved along the hallways she knew so well, she felt the comfortable certainty that she could have remembered a little of those everyday dramas at each step. The result of more than 6 years in the school. It brought her a most needed safety in the middle of the storm, and she welcomed it willingly, taking a deep breath. How she loved the castle. The community of its inhabitants. Even then, she was just happy to be with them. Professor McGonagall walking rapidly to the Headmaster's Office was enough to tell her she wasn't alone, and they were fighting together. That's where they found their toughness. How she would miss it.  
  
And suddenly, the still two seconds before silently creeping thought hit her in the face. And returned her stomach. She would miss it, more than metaphorically. It wasn't a way of saying. More than six years was nearly seven, and everything would disappear. Her surrounding would be reduced to nothing. The castle wouldn't be hers any more, her friends would still be there, but. Who were her friends now: Harry. and? She didn't even know for sure; what a mess her life was. And, most importantly, how about that microcosm of people she knew without knowing them? Those to whom she spoke, without confiding. The world to which she belonged, in which she had learned to live. She didn't want it to become. what? Tears were prickling in her slowly blurring eyes. To dissolve. Dissolve among the vast community of the world and never gather again. Oh. Well. She breathed again, and began to walk on, wondering when she had stopped. She was being stupid, after all, or rather having very muggle-born ideas. She was a witch, and consequently belonged to the wizarding world. Wizarding England, the one where everybody knew each other, or nearly. Yes. She would find her cosmos back, only a bit grown up into the whole wizarding community. That was not an annihilation, she thought reasonably, just a mutation. Nice, clean, bearable mutation, and she would find her own marks back. She thanked any God there could have been for the wizarding world not being as vast and frightening as the multitude of muggles. It was nearly like a new school year, after all. Life had never gone without any changes. She was ready to face those changes, the real world, to leave school. It was frightening, but not nearly as horrifying as her previous fear had been. Beside, it was Hogwarts she was speaking - no, thinking about. Not any school. It would always be there for her, would she need it. Professor McGonagall would never banish her from her office because she had graduated. And Dumbledore. It was so good to know that everybody in England, or nearly, had been at Hogwarts and thus, would understand her. Sort of, anyway, added a bitter voice she immediately proscribed. She felt like she wouldn't have been able to survive that particular event only to leave school. Absence of the castle was too much, added to the painfully void where Ron.  
  
Ouch.  
  
Apparently she was at her destination, but the laboratory wouldn't open alone. Which was quite reasonable, considering the substances and material stored in it. So she snapped back to reality and spoke the password for the countless time that week. Why again had she been appointed store-filler of Mme Pomfrey?. Oh, yes that sorrow coming back deeper and deeper each time she was left alone and unoccupied, the need to help, do something, anything.  
  
And for Ron, it was too late. God. No, no, no, not going to think of it. She sighed. Then admonished herself for it, and took what should have been a steady breath to prove herself that she felt all right. Which, of course, wasn't the case. Who would tell Ginn- No, no. The potion. Yes.  
  
She drifted to intellectual concentrated mode, in an attempted to ignore the physical ache inside her chest. Take that away, she was a living fire, destruction. but apparently that particular phenomena wouldn't be kind enough to at least strike her and leave, it had to keep her alive and hurt, and hurt again.  
  
What was she mulling over, again?  
  
Work. And peace of mind, at least simulated.  
  
  
  
That evening, at the end of the Dinner, in a much less populated than usual Great Hall.  
  
Hermione was carefully playing with the potatoes she had pretended to eat for about half an hour, in the lack of conversation of a tired evening, at the Gryffindor table. For the second time, Harry had been allowed to eat there, and was sitting in front of her. From what she saw of his plate and the glimpse she caught of his fork every other second, he had renounced to the potatoes, and was merely swinging his fork above his cake. Back and forth, back and forth, back.  
  
"It was his favourite."  
  
She looked up to the cake in Harry's plate. Indeed, chocolate and a bit of pumpkin.  
  
"Right," she said, feeling stupidly laconic.  
  
No matter how much she tried, she found nothing to add. Small talk had never been her strength, but that silence, unbreakable as it was, made her feel guilty. Surely they had to speak. What was to say, though, except suffering ruminations? A sentence she had one day read, or heard, or maybe thought - it didn't matter - came back to her, about friends being the ones by whom admitting weakness could never be perceived as complaining. It gave her a tiny amount of resolution, and she choose to use it before it left, being conscious it wouldn't last long.  
  
"Harry, I think we should speak. Of it. We need to say. I mean, to express what-" Her voice died in her throat.  
  
After a silence, he answered. "Yes."  
  
Foresightedly, her energy left her and she drifted back to loneliness. He probably didn't come across anything to put together in words either, she thought. She gave an impatient wave, sending her potatoes back to the kitchen. Unfortunately, what had to happen happened, and the same dessert popped up defiantly, in front of her. She tried to take it philosophically, reasonably, analytically. There was no way the House Elves could have known. They couldn't stop serving her that cake she hated. Yes, she hated it, had always disliked it, and was now moreover touched by sickening memories at its sight. It was still the same one, the one she always gave to Ron, because he was so fond of it. No. Thinking that way was a bad thing. She didn't know what was good, but that wasn't.  
  
"Hermione?" Harry's concerned voice asked kindly.  
  
She stared back at him. Apparently she had given an odd paralysed look to her portion for the last minute.  
  
"I kn-" she vaguely registered in the background, while glancing back to her food. But it was still there. "Oh, no!" she interrupted whatever Harry had wanted to say. And she stood up and left for the door, feeling a bit sick.  
  
Walking without paying attention, she stormed out of there. Or so she thought. She should have engulfed in a high corridor, run away from the offending victuals, through the portrait of the fat Lady, up the stairs, curled up in her - . but instead, she hit something - someone? Never mind.  
  
She nearly lost her balance and was caught by a stable grip. A grip from a little bit above her. Not much. McGonagall. Right, she had bumped onto the woman. And she had to be very upset to think of her professor in those terms, some part of her mind registered ironically.  
  
"Miss Granger?"  
  
Oh, yes, she had to produce some articulated sound. Preferably now. Right now.  
  
"Yes, professor... Err..." What next? "Sorry. I wasn't paying attention." Thank God for civil reflexes.  
  
She wanted to step away, but the hand hadn't released her. Oh, what had she forgotten? She finally resolved to look up. and met worried eyes. Right, then, it was compassionate professors she had forgotten.  
  
"You do seem to me too much upset to be let wandering alone through the castle, Miss Granger."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Anything I could do?" the comforting woman added after a short while.  
  
"No, thanks." Hermione threw a meaningful glance in Harry's direction.  
  
"Well, I believe Mr. Potter will survive the evening without you." Apparently se had caught that one. "And would you object to a cup of tea, if I happened to suggest one?"  
  
"Well, I-" No, Hermione did nothing. No plausible excuse.  
  
"There's a Headmaster here, having spoken enough with your friend and knowing him enough to help, you know. And believe me," at that McGonagall searched her eyes "from experience, I can tell you Dumbledore is not one to let him alone." She took an innocent breath. "I believe there's rumours about woman-talks helping to sort thoughts out. Perhaps it is the ideal moment to make your own opinion about it."  
  
Hermione stayed still, slowly levelling her gaze up to her Professor's face. What had she thought about McGonagall's office being a heaven, earlier that day? Perhaps it was indeed time to verify the axiom.  
  
"Let's try it," she heard, again, and the woman let go of her arm.  
  
And she followed her in the direction of the Gryffindor Tower. Why not, after all? She felt oddly relieved, while experiencing at the same time that sense of foreboding that told her she could be about to do a mistake. Wasn't that a bit contradictory, she thought, at loss in front of the confusing signs her mind threw her.  
  
She arrived all to soon to her destination, and nearly hit her Head of House again because she was so lost in her thoughts. It wouldn't do to promote that as a habit. The older woman muttered a password and stepped back to let Hermione enter.  
  
"After you, dear."  
  
Hermione walked in, and finally shook her head. She had to come back to reality. She heard the door close behind her, and McGonagall's pace behind her. She stepped toward the chairs, but. wait a minute. That wasn't McGonagall's office. No. And now she thought of it, the door hadn't been one she knew. Where on earth. Oh. That looked suspiciously like her Head of House's sitting room.  
  
The woman was examining her carefully when Hermione stared back at her, with a quite questioning face.  
  
"Have a seat," she said, leading her to the two armchairs next to the empty fireplace.  
  
Hermione sat in the strange, comfortable armchair that reminded her strongly of Dumbledore's taste, not outing her considerations, and imagined what that place would look like during winter, with a high warm fire in the hearth. And felt a cup appear in her hand. That was the second time, she thought. Perhaps it was part of the exams they took to become teachers. While she mused on that hypothesis, McGonagall asked gently: "Tea?" "Chocolate, please," Hermione answered, and she felt he cup warm up. Next moment, she could smell chocolate, definitely good chocolate, and marvelled at that ability to conjure anything she asked. Perhaps the House Elves permanently had a bit of everything they could want, in the kitchen?  
  
"So, dear," her thoughts were interrupted. "anything you would like to tell me?"  
  
Hermione shook her head warily. "Too much, professor."  
  
She crossed her legs. Then uncrossed them. And crossed them back, the other way around.  
  
"Miss Granger."  
  
It was spoken calmly, and Hermione ventured a look. Minerva McGonagall was patiently stirring her tea, while scrutinizing intently Hermione.  
  
"Professor?"  
  
"Miss Granger," she repeated, expectantly.  
  
"We all lost somebody in that battle, didn't we?"  
  
There was a silence.  
  
"More or less. It is not less unfair that way, is it?"  
  
"No, it is not." Hermione replied, sighing.  
  
They stayed in silence for a while.  
  
"Miss Granger?" Hermione finally heard, and came back from her reverie.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I happened to be the last one to. err. speak to Severus Snape, before."  
  
Hermione watched her intently.  
  
"And he was in quite a bad posture already."  
  
Professor McGonagall responded by the same thorough observation of her interlocutor's features.  
  
"Yes?" Hermione encouraged her.  
  
"And he told me, to tell you, if he died, that he thanked you."  
  
"Oh," Hermione said, numbly. Whatever she had awaited, it was not that. "Did he?"  
  
"He did," the woman answered pointlessly, studying her piercingly.  
  
After a moment, Hermione shifted in her chair. There was a definite interrogation hanging in the air. "I went to see him, the evening before the. the battle."  
  
McGonagall nodded.  
  
"To speak to him." Hermione hesitated. "We. I felt like we had to tell him that. Well, to demonstrate him our support."  
  
"It seems you succeeded, then," McGonagall confirmed for her. "I had been wondering what it was, that could have make him sound. grateful."  
  
Hermione's eyes widened.  
  
"Indeed," her professor added, "grateful is not a word I'm used to linking with Professor Snape, either."  
  
They exchanged exhausted smiles.  
  
"Did Ginny Weasley wake up already?" McGonagall questioned again, after a quiet time.  
  
"No. She will, tomorrow."  
  
"Oh" the woman acknowledged. "And who will-"  
  
"I don't know. We couldn't decide it."  
  
"Her mother will be there, I suppose." It was more a statement than an enquiry.  
  
"Of course" Hermione assured her, "but we don't want to let her have to tell that, you know."  
  
"Yes, naturally." McGonagall took a breath. "You know I'm here, if you need me, don't you?"  
  
Hermione nodded. Of course she did.  
  
"I should go, professor. But. I'll remember that."  
  
"Good," McGonagall said in a shuddering voice. And the cups disappeared.  
  
Hermione stood up. "Professor?" she whispered, "That horrible cake we had. It was Ro. his favourite."  
  
McGonagall gave her a cheerless smile. "I'm afraid," she murmured, "that I don't know Mr. Weasley's culinary tastes well enough to avoid that sort of things," she responded. "Although. It explains a great deal about the distress you and Mr. Potter displayed at dinner."  
  
She waved her hand and the door opened. Hermione gave her a pleading look. Pleading for nothing, come to think of it. Her professor walked her to the door, and gave her a brief hug. That, in itself, was enough to show that they lived extraordinary times.  
  
"I'll be in the infirmary tomorrow, if you tell me at what time Miss Weasley-"  
  
"About half past seven."  
  
"I'll be there. Maybe I can help. One could say I have a certain experience with announcing- well. bad news caused by darks wizards."  
  
"Thanks" Hermione just articulated. And watched her gratefully enough for her professor to see it through the foggiest cloud that could have blurred any eyes in the world.  
  
And she turned, and walked away, aware of the thoughtful eyes following her.  
  
None of the inhabitants of the castle had sleep too well without potions those nights. That one would be no exception. 


	3. Carthago delenda est

Here is the third chapter! Before posting it, I'd just like to thank my beta, who proofread the three first chapters, and also answer some of my linguistic interrogations! I hope you all like the story without grammar errors, and you're all very grateful to her!  
  
I have indeed problems with the uploading process, which insists on eating all my ellipsis and italics, police. I find it just as unpleasant as you, but flaming will lead nowhere. Though, if you know how I can avoid it (especially the ellipsis problem), I'd be very glad to hear it!  
  
  
  
3. Carthago delenda est!  
  
  
  
Four days later, in an absurd, blurry, mostly white world.  
  
Ouch. That ached. What was "that", anyway? God. No. Whatever it was that was manifesting itself painfully, it was clearly bodily. Which meant. Oh, no, please, not that. It was coming right on him, at full speed. He tried to focus on the degree of consciousness he had been bathing in until then. tried hard. But only vainly. He already didn't remember what he was trying to keep. Everything was zooming away from him. Colours were swirling toward him, and light. Light? No! For God's pity, no.  
  
All right. Not that much to fuss about.  
  
He was alive.  
  
No, really, not much. He had to stop his wailing mind, and just open his eyes.  
  
Why again had he thought he could be dead? Surely one of those stupid convincing dream again. A particularly excruciating one, judging by the state he was in. He really didn't feel like any other morning. What was that nightmare about, exactly? He mentally snorted! As if there were that many possibilities. Oh, no, now he remembered. It was a particular one.  
  
No, it was no dream- Not a dream? At that he opened his eyes. Ouch. Well, he had tried to open them anyway. He concentrated on that heavy task. Lifting an eyelid, then the other. Light cracked in. And he tried to conceal a suffering moaning.  
  
And closed those silly eyes back before he could have seen anything.  
  
Oh, no. Why conceal? If he was on the battlefield and the others were still fighting, then nobody would hear it. And if they did... Well, perhaps it was his only chance to be healed. Not that he absolutely wanted to live, but since the deities seemed to have decided so, who was he to protest? But then, he just wanted the pain to be alleviated. The physical one, that was.  
  
There was some movement around him. Better stay discreet, then, his old instinct ordered in spite of his uncaring self.  
  
Which curse had got him, again? Oh, yes. Nott. "Treacherous crosser!" that one had thrown at him, before all lights went off. But he didn't remember the curse in itself. Strange. Perhaps had it come from someone else?  
  
He wasn't truly aware of wailing again. And he didn't care if he sounded like a banshee. Either someone would achieve him, or heal him. That would stop, anyway. That.  
  
Then he felt something. Down his throat, surely a potion. Who was administering it? Never mind. Was it really his throat? It didn't feel like it would obey him, anyway. Was that mass his body? It felt more like a corpse he would have liked to quit.  
  
He should really try to get a real view of his surrounding again, and see if they had won, or lost. The battle did seem finished. No sound- or not much. A desolated landscape, where corpse and hurt lied, came to his mind. And mediwizards trying to do their job. Yes, that would explain the potion.  
  
Oh. A familiar feeling. Consciousness was returning. His body felt his again. He wasn't sure if that was an improvement, though. It certainly did not felt like that. It really ached.  
  
"Severus?" He heard, far away. He tried to move his head, but something stopped him.  
  
He sighed. Oh, sighing was a painful movement, two. Would that ever stop?  
  
And then he decided to do it. He had to, and now was as good a time as any other. On the count of three. One. Go on, it won't be that bad. Two. A bit of courage. Three.  
  
Ouch. He gritted his teeth and resisted.  
  
And through his newly opened eyes, he was served with the sight of Mme Pomfrey's face. So it was she. And it was her hand that was on his forehead, to calm him, he noticed.  
  
That bore the mark of monotony. Not anything new, there. Waking-up under Mme Pomfrey's hands.  
  
And then, he realised that light was also really familiar. So, there he was. He had been transported. There had already been too much wake-up in that infirmary, he thought.  
  
But he had to admit his state was really more uncomfortable this time. And also, he knew it was the last time. Whether they had won, or lost. No more spy duties.  
  
Good point.  
  
His expression certainly had come into focus, because the nurse judged that it was time to speak to him.  
  
"Miss Granger went to fetch Dumbledore. He'll be here any moment, Severus."  
  
He managed a groan. what did she say? English was a complicated language.Dumbledore, there. Yes. That he understood. Then Miss Granger. Memories came, flooding back from the day before. Yeah, that night, she had come to speak to him. And then he hadn't seen him until the battle. Apparently she had survived. Good for her.  
  
Suddenly another voice addressed him, and he felt the hand on his face retreat.  
  
Oh, yes. Dumbledore.  
  
His senses were coming back, and his mind competent again, with less of that highly slowing and disturbing wool around and in his brain. He found himself actually able to see the old man. And to understand him.  
  
Dumbledore looked relieved. Good sign? Oh, the old man wouldn't stop hoping if they had lost anyway. Better ask if he wanted to know, his own sarcastic conscience reminded him.  
  
"Albus?" He managed. And choked abundantly. what a messy disobeying body. It was highly unpleasant. Though he didn't feel pain any more, since some time, he suddenly realise. Good point, surely due to the potion.  
  
"Albus," he repeated when he had regained his ability to speak, "did we lose?"  
  
"A highly pessimistic way to say it, my friend" the headmaster answered.  
  
So that was it, he should have known, they had lost. His heart sank lower. Which was a proof that it wasn't already at its lowest. In itself, a strange statement.  
  
Hey, Albus had spoke again, what had he said? No? Not lost? Then?  
  
"No, really, Severus, don't give me that look, Voldemort is dead."  
  
The old man looked at him in silence for some time. Severus's mind processed that piece of news slowly. It made sense, though. The final battle, plotted so carefully. Him here, in a hospital bed. And Voldemort dead. Some kind of new world it built.  
  
Albus was still there. Patiently waiting for him to fully understand the meaning of that all.  
  
It was madness.  
  
  
  
  
  
In the middle of the afternoon, that day. Severus Snape's quarters.  
  
'I'm an impotent man', Severus Snape thought as he finally relaxed in one of his armchairs... or whatever else it could be. It just didn't matter. And his foul mood increased. Feeling unable was a bad thing in itself. Doing so in front of others was a humiliation to which he had never become accustomed.  
  
And here he was, finally in his quarters after hours and hours of asking and ordering and threatening Madam Pomfrey. And the intervention of an amused headmaster. Damn him, that wasn't amusing in the least! He wasn't a mere child in an infirmary. He had his dignity. And even down there he couldn't be alone. He had to allow regular visits of the nurse, of several other people, including but not limited to Albus. Pomfrey and Dumbledore were bad enough, but as if they all enjoyed belittling him, he had been obliged to agree to other, to tons of visitors. Well, or maybe it was just an additional three of them. But two were Gryffindors, so they counted double pain. Subsequently it was a crowd he would have to bear.  
  
The current person wasn't the worst, at least. Hermione Granger had agreed to help him to his quarters. Again, humiliating to the core, but. Well, even he had to bitterly admit he wasn't in a state to move alone through the half of the castle.  
  
He turned his eyes to her. She was staring at him in a way. well, apparently she had had that look for about 5 minutes now, ever since he had sank into his sofa. A typical stupid, damned. Gryffindor look. She was being compassionate. With him. Who did she think she was? He wasn't one to pity. Did she thought because of yesterday. No, it wasn't yesterday, he admonished himself. Had to remember he had been err. asleep all those days. Anyway, what he said or did in front of her that evening wasn't an allowance to anyth- Right. He had to calm down. She was just trying to help, however untactf- No.  
  
He really had to stay alone for some time and sort his thoughts. Much things had happened since the last time he had seen the sun. He had to get her out of there, in a civil way. Yes, definitely. After all, he owed her something, and however infuriating it was to him, it was suppose to mean he would be. No, not gentle. But he should be at least human to her. Just let's say that if he was to hurt her, it would be after that horribly necessary sorting of thoughts.  
  
"Professor?" she said.  
  
'Don't fabric problems to yourself already' he admonished his undisciplined instinct, and decided not to bark. He could imagine the coalition of Gryffindors he didn't want to affront amongst the staff. Well, namely McGonagall. But she alone, would be enough to make his life hell. Beside, she was also one of those he had agreed to receive in his quarters. She could become even worse that he already knew Sinistra would be. Although how on earth they expected that last to rule the Slytherin House in his place during what they all insisted to call his convalescence, even with his advice, was beyond him. He was sure she had already had problem in those few days he had been. err. away from his duties.  
  
He wasn't sure it would be great not to be a spy anymore, if he was to deal with a hurt Miss Granger and an infuriated Minerva. So, he just had to be polite enough.  
  
"Professor?" Hermione Granger repeated.  
  
Oh, yes. An answer for Miss Granger. He really was in a bad state.  
  
"Yes, Miss Granger, I'm all right."  
  
Shouldn't the girl be attending a lesson, anyway? Albus had said lessons had started again, hadn't he?  
  
"Oh." the doubtful girl replied.  
  
"I assure you. Just a bit tired." Oh, yes, it was a potion hour, for 7th Years Gryffindors. So no lesson that afternoon of course.  
  
"Right," a totally unconvinced Hermione added. "I'll just help you to our bed, then, and."  
  
"No you won't." He said, staying very calm, indeed. Something to be proud of, considering the horror that had seized him at the very idea. Nobody had put him to bed for decades. "The armch- err, I mean the sofa is comfortable enough for now," he informed her, finally getting a look at the room around him.  
  
"As you wish," she muttered, clearly against her best judgement. "I'll tell professor McGonagall that you're here and alone then, so that she visits you when she. err. see fits."  
  
He forced him not to hear the implied meaning of it. Or he would be awful; he knew it. "I thank you Miss Granger. You do that, indeed, and go back to you homework. I'm sure you've got much to do until the NEWTs."  
  
And then he couldn't help just know what she had implied: "And no, you won't tell McGonagall how bad, and feeble, and pitiful, and. well, you just won't tell her to come to check on me in five minutes time."  
  
He regained his relative calm and finished: "I just need some privacy, right now, Miss Granger."  
  
Surprisingly enough, she nodded with an accepting look. "I understand, Professor. I'll tell her not to come until the evening then. I'm sure she'll want to have dinner with you." She turned on her heels and went to the door. "Oh, and professor." she added as an afterthought, "the NEWTs are not before everything is back to normal, and we really are prepared for it." She paused, and hesitated. "Lessons just started back yesterday, you know." She flashed a small smile. And with that she was gone.  
  
Well, she sometimes really was quite. well, not so little minded, for a Gryffindor. He could nearly feel grateful. Nearly.  
  
  
  
  
  
Two hours later, in the same sofa.  
  
Severus Snape sighed. He just wasn't good at human relations; he knew that. He hadn't done anything wrong yet, but it would come. It was bound to happen. He could nearly feel it waiting around the next corner of his troubled life.  
  
So, briefly. No Voldemort any more. No classes to teach until he felt better. Right. No classes was nice. No Voldemort was brainstorming. He just didn't know what he was supposed to be, then. No spying, so. just a teacher? Could he be just a teacher? Was that a life, for him? Where was the sense of it?  
  
He was quite angry against himself. Voldemort gone. He was supposed to be relieved. The hell with joy. He was just disorientated. Absurdly. He couldn't see where his world was heading.  
  
And then, there was them. All of them. Albus would want to see him happy. Was he able to be happy? He was still mean-spirited, hateful and hated Severus Snape. Hated? There was Minerva. She had always been civil to him, and quite nice in her own way. Had she a way of being nice? He snorted. And then stopped. He was being unfair to the woman. She had never been sweet toward him, but caring enough, and that in itself was rare, not to say miraculous. Considering who and what he was, and who and what she was... Yes, it had felt good to be accepted as an equal by her, all those years ago. And, of course, there was Professor Sinistra. Right, that was just a few professional visits, on the subject of his House. Not that bad, he tried to convince himself. He would survive a colleague being professional. Even if it was nice, beloved and understanding Sinistra. He wondered when the last time was, that anybody had mentioned her as an argument, just in order to prove to him that a rigorous and efficient professor could be also nice and popular. He hated to see his supposedly final arguments destroyed that way. And Hermione Granger. Ouch. He had shown weakness in front of her. Though she had seemed to know what he felt already. which only meat that anybody who wasn't a fool would have seen it, just like her. Great. Considering the amount of fool under his pupils, those weren't preoccupying him. One or two hours of being the professor he could be, and even the others would forget whatever they could have thought about him being weak. Or even human, he mentally mocked. Others like Minerva, for example, would be more difficult cases. He just didn't want to appear. less competent than she had always been, herself. And what if she decided he needed her help? He wasn't prepared to deal with. people. Friendship. Or even idle unproductive small chat. What a hell! But to the point, he had shown a lot more to Miss Granger than was comfortable for him. She hadn't behaved like a winning and mocking Gryffindor that afternoon, but still. You were never sure, with those. What if.  
  
Someone knocked. He grimaced. He was not a social person.  
  
"Come in," he called. "If you're bound to, anyway." He added in a lower tone.  
  
"Of course I'm bound to, and you know that." McGonagall's voice came in reply.  
  
Jesus. The woman's ears were too efficient. It wasn't good. Or had he said it aloud?  
  
"Still on that sofa, Severus? Don't tell me you stayed there all afternoon."  
  
He was about to answer, or to spit out a mean sentence anyway, when. A thought struck him. "Still? Wait a minute, you didn't see me today." His brain was working very quickly, suddenly. And he felt a pang of something totally unidentified when suddenly Miss Granger appeared in a new light. Was the girl repeating everything he did? Was that the purpose of everything? So, had he misjudge her in such a way?  
  
"Severus" the older woman called. She sighed and sat down in front of him. "Let's do this like two adult reasonable adults. All right?"  
  
He looked back at her.  
  
"I don't want to play games with you." She went on. "Yes, the girl spoke with me. But no, it wasn't because I asked her for information, or any of that sort of hypothesises you could build. Don't protest; I know you could imagine that."  
  
He decided to ignore the 'No offence meant' contained in her expression.  
  
"Which implies?" he asked, menacingly. Or so he hoped to sound.  
  
"Absolutely nothing Severus." She closed briefly her eyes. "I refuse to fight, actually. I don't think I'd like to, if I were in your place"  
  
He arched an eyebrow interrogatively. So. it was becoming unusual. What were the rules of that new communication?  
  
"I mean, it has to be a difficult time for you. Your life is changing a lot because of. those recent events, and."  
  
That sounded suspiciously like Dumbledore's briefing. Or discussion with him. Perhaps just his influence on his Deputy Headmistress over the years, he corrected himself. They could be, after all, very alike. That friendship of theirs, he had to admit, did seem valuable. He returned to listening to her.  
  
"I wasn't accusing you of paranoia, anyway. I promise. I just thought that any human being in your place," she went on with caution, "and you in particular, given what your earlier life was, could be subjected to. perplexities in front of that situation?"  
  
He barely acquiesced, but it seemed to be enough for her. So. She wanted honesty.  
  
"Miss Granger," she added, "was just confused on some points. I don't think she told me everything, or every thought she had about you, I mean. I didn't ask; I just listened to what she wanted to share. And we didn't really discuss you and your behaviour and its reasons, I only gave her advice about what she was to do or not do toward someone like you..."  
  
He tensed. He hated to know people were speaking of him behind his back. What did they say? He felt terrible, not knowing. They had analysed him, and he just had to stay there and not know, and-  
  
She was watching him carefully. "I promise we weren't psychoanalytical, anyway." she smiled.  
  
He couldn't help just let his mouth curve a little at that. He should calm down. His nerves were really quite touchy. Too much.  
  
"Severus?"  
  
"Yes, Minerva", he said, staring back a her. And deciding that, after all, he was a mature man, able to handle some change. He wouldn't throw out a helpful and reasonable woman he respected, and who wasn't even really invading his privacy. Because that would be childish.  
  
"I think Hermione wants to help you."  
  
He took a deep breath. And thought. He clutched to the resolutions he had just taken. Minerva wanted to be sincere with him, right? So he wouldn't play with her. What did he really think?  
  
"I saw that. I'm not just that sure she can do it."  
  
"Pleased to know you accepted the principle of fair and open-minded discussion, Severus."  
  
He lowered his head onto his joined hands, because her appreciative look reminded him too much of the one she had as a teacher being proud of her students success.  
  
"Really," she insisted, "it's nice to know we can really speak, sometimes."  
  
He smiles coldly briefly behind his own hands.  
  
"Do not add anything, Minerva. You've reached the limit."  
  
The silence followed, until he finally levelled his eyes. And she smiled at him.  
  
"All right." She added in mock defence. "Just remember it then, and I'll try not to repeat too much nice things, for fear of. offending you."  
  
They smiled. But she seemed to have understood nonetheless. He felt relieved when she conjured the dinner. They ate in silence for some time, and then spoke of a current research about potions, at Stonehenge Institute, of Lockhart's last progresses in the medi-institution where he had been placed. She did not venture any. difficult subject until he finished his dessert.  
  
And then, when she put her spoon down, he raised the subject himself. "So, tell me, dear colleague, what did that pupil of yours tell you about me?"  
  
McGonagall considered her thoughts for some time. His face had been serious, and he knew she had understood to what he referred. "I don't think I'm the right person to tell you that, you know. Why not ask her?"  
  
"Because I don't know if I want to speak with her." Came the spontaneous retort.  
  
"Oh," the woman acknowledged pensively, "I suggest you do it, though. She's really a nice and intelligent person, you know."  
  
"And so?"  
  
"And so I imagine you could actually find yourself able to suffer her presence without too much of a foul mood."  
  
"So is it with you Minerva." He articulated, locking his eyes with hers. "And what exactly does that lead to, if she can indeed, like you, bear me and make herself bearable?"  
  
She didn't answer. Just looked at him with a face he found very exasperating. Her own Dumbledorish face.  
  
"All right I'll speak with her," he finally admitted. "I know, it can be pleasant, and I do think I remember all that fuss about friends and being nice, and civil."  
  
"Do you?" she smiled again.  
  
"Really, I heard of it." He noticed cynically.  
  
She laughed. "After all, Albus does hand around you, you know. You couldn't have convinced me you never heard of human care and pleasant relations with friends."  
  
"Albus?" he cocked an eyebrow. "You really think Albus rubbed off on me?" He gave a nearly afraid expression. "My dear Professor, you should remember I'm a Slytherin, and therefore immune to whatever contagion exists between the lot of you."  
  
"Right!" Her eyes twinkled. "And here I was, wondering what I had forgotten."  
  
It was nearly, very nearly pleasant to have her for dinner. For once, being taken out of his mourning wasn't that bad. Even if it was by a plotting of Albus that perhaps not even the woman in front of him suspected totally. He was sure Albus had known how it would turn, when he had forced him to accept some visitors. It was most clearly not in a mainly medical purpose. Unless his psyche could be considered as a medical case, of course. Which, now it was pointed out, wasn't that impossible.  
  
It had been ages since he last had that sort of civil conversation with anyone else than Dumbledore. And in those recent times, even with the Headmaster, cups of tea had became more. strategic meetings. He had never stayed that long without a game of chess. At least three months, he evaluated. Yes, the war had touched him, and eaten his life part by part. And if he was franc toward himself, he knew it had begun long ago. It was not only the last months of it, before the Hogwarts Battle, as everybody already called it. His life had been a battlefield ever since he turned spy. if you excepted the ten years pause after the Potter's death, and until the boy came back to the Wizarding World. Only ten years. Now he had been proven right, and didn't care being called an utter pessimistic. He had been the one foreseeing it. Ever since famous Harry Potter was in his first year, Severus had seen everything coming back. He had felt all of it would happen again. He had made his life a preparation for the returning fight. Well, considering that his life had been decent before everything, which it itself was another interesting judgment. The very thought of building a life again, or perhaps finally building it, after about 40 years of crawling, working, hurting, mourning and carrying unhappiness at the surface of the earth, was exhausting, for a tired man like Severus Snape. Was it worth it? Damn Albus and everybody for proving him that it could be.  
  
As if he couldn't have just died, physically, or at least crawl into his dungeons like all crustaceans do, under rocks. And just wait there, refusing to live. He sighed. It would have been easier. He would have known how to do that. After all, he had had practice during those very 10 years without any Potter on he face of the Wizarding World. Although. No? Oh, yes, now he thought of it, he hadn't been the real hermit. Albus had got him out of his loneliness, more and more, over the years, and. And Minerva. And also the last decent DADA teacher the school had had, in his opinion, who had been helpful, before and despite her death. Well, all right. If there hadn't been that danger coming back, they would very probably have cured him of his unliving attitude. Without him even noticing.  
  
Oh, well. Then he was just lost, wasn't he? They had nearly done it once, when doubt planned on the real condition of the Dark Lord. It was becoming very clear to him. They would succeed now, with the definite end of that precise menace. He tried to apply their lesson and cheer up. At least, they had had the decency to announce themselves, this time. No, he was no good at seeing the nice side of things. 


End file.
